Minnesotans are some of the hardest working people in the United States.
Using the measures of “raw” labor in the American Experiment United States Tables — employment and average hours worked annually — we can calculate that in 2024, the amount of raw labor provided per capita in Minnesota ranked 7th out of 50 states, as Figure 1 shows.
Figure 1: Raw labor per capita, 2024
Minnesotans are also taxed relatively heavily on the fruits of their hard work.
As Figure 2 shows, according to Census Bureau data, in 2023 — the most recent year for which we have data — Minnesota ranked 8th out of 50 states for the amount of state tax the average resident paid and for the amount of Personal Income in the state paid in state taxes Minnesota ranked 6th out of 50 states, as Figure 3 shows.
Figure 2: Total state taxes per capita, 2023
Figure 3: Total state taxes as a share of state Personal Income, 2023
Minnesotans have tolerated this high level of taxation on the fruits of their hard work on the understanding that the government which extracts it from them spends it wisely. That this is true is now in grave doubt.
Our own Scandal Tracker, which logs the amount of money defrauded from taxpayers by swindlers in Minnesota, is now up to $1.5 billion. Last month, US Attorney Joe Thompson announced that “half or more” of the $18 billion paid out by 14 Medicaid programs run by the state Department of Human Services (DHS) since 2018 had been lost to fraud.
Minnesota’s state government has, to put it bluntly yet charitably, been an incompetent steward of the money handed to it by taxpayers. Minnesotans should remember that when they roll out of bed early in the morning or late in the evening for a night shift and when, come April, they make out a check to the Department of Revenue: Who is my money going to, exactly, and for what?
